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Care and Feeding of an Ebony?

I know how you feel, a couple of the others don't 'get it', you've just unpacked you're new 'pride 'n joy', and you're excited like I was by my first LF camera. Somebody doesn't like it, so what.

I'm both a Photographer and Woodworker, get a can of Liberon furniture paste wax, the best, cost $13.90 and I've been working on the same can for 5 yrs!

Use the wax on the metal and wood, it's more protection than you think, and whatever else scratches, nick, and/or marks you get, you get, but if it's made out of wood and you care about it, use the wax.

Care and Feeding of an Ebony?

I own a metal field camera not a wook one, but I've seen enough of the Ebony to know that woodworking was done by a true Artisan. The bevels, the joinery is beautiful, sure it was made to be used, but waxing periodically is good for the wood, and is a gesture to the craftsman who put his time and sweat into the piece to say 'I appreciate what you did'.

Care and Feeding of an Ebony?

Anything made out of wood is only as strong as it joints. Joinery with the right glue proprerly done, is almost as strong as the wood itself, and supplemental fasteners like screws are secondary. The enemy of bare wood and it joints in a workpiece is the sun/UV, and temperature/humidity swings, which causes expansion and contraction in both the wood and joints.

Anything made out of wood and its joinery tends to get torn up not from use but from expansion and contraction which can cause the joints to fail. In an effort to combat all of this, any combination of stains, Danish oils, Shellacs(french polish), urethanes, and Spar varnishes are used.

Spar varnish among these has the ability to flex with the wood as it expands and contracts, and is used on a workpiece that has to deal with being outside. Even though these overcoats can look like hard glass none of them are complete moisture barriers.

Your wax is supplemental protection moisturewise and its biggest advantage is that it's simple, renewable, and cheap, and it cannot hurt and usually helps protect whatever finish the manufacturer has on a workpiece.

I went through all this technical 'macaroni' to emphasize to Matthew that what will tear up a workpiece isn't necessarily use, but the elements, that's why you use the wax.